Pivot - Tech Stock Troubles, Epstein Fallout, and SF Mayor Daniel Lurie

Episode Date: November 17, 2025

The Pivot Tour has landed in Kara's beloved San Francisco! Kara and Scott chat with Mayor Daniel Lurie about the city’s revitalization — and Trump’s threat to send in troops. Then, tech stocks take a tumble, and the fallout from the Epstein emails grows. Plus, Scott gets a surprise visit from someone in his past! Watch this episode on the ⁠⁠Pivot YouTube channel⁠⁠.Follow us on Instagram and Threads at ⁠⁠@pivotpodcastofficial⁠⁠.Follow us on Bluesky at ⁠⁠@pivotpod.bsky.social⁠⁠Follow us on TikTok at ⁠⁠@pivotpodcast⁠⁠.Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or email [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Scale smarter with top talent and $500 in credit. Terms and conditions apply. She thinks this is her town. Hello, ladies. You know, it's, it's hello men for you. Scott? Scott, it's hello men for you. Get the city right.

Hi, everyone. Live from the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco, the best city on earth. This... I just got a loud environment notification from Apple. All right, I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. Before we start, I want to send a big thank

to our sponsors, Odu and Upwork. Please, again, give a round of applause for tonight's special guest, Mayor Daniel Lurie. So, the mayor has a show. short time here, but we've got a couple of questions. So let's start off with an easy topic, the housing affordability crisis here in San Francisco. The city has an estimated 830,000 people living on about seven square miles. San Francisco residential rents have risen the most the nation of the past year with apartment prices in the city jumping about 6% in that time.

Average rent for a San Francisco apartment is $315 a month, which makes the second highest in the country behind New York City's 3,000, 3,000. You've proposed taller buildings and denser zoning, criticism responded by calling you a gentrifier and Republican. Talk about which one of those criticisms offends you more, probably today with Epstein, probably Republican. Anyway, I talk about that. So we have a state mandate imposed on all 58 counties in the state of California.

We've responded by putting forth what we call our family zoning plan, density along our commercial corridors and making sure that we allow the next generation of San Franciscans to have an opportunity to stay and live here. And it's on the high-resourced neighborhoods, the north and west side of town. Parts of our city have not been rezoned for 50 years. We need to build more housing. We need to build it along transit corridors and along commercial corridors. And that's what we're focused on. And we've made a lot of of amendments and we're working with our board of supervisors which is our city council here in san francisco and we're almost at the finish line on it and we want to be a city that does it our way

and not the sacramento way and so this family zoning is going to help us increase density in our city in the coming years all right one of the signs so one of the signs of san francisco's hospitality recovery blackstone is nearing a hundred thirty million dollar due to acquire the four Seasons Hotel. City hotel occupancy has rebounded 70 percent up from below 50 percent in 2021. However, there's discounts going on. Talk a little bit of what's happening commercially for the city, which got attacked by Fox News. You can boo. But talk a little bit about, it feels as if, to me, I'm seeing a lot more business generation. I'm seeing a lot more return. This city is on the rise. There's just no question about it.

All the crime data is going in the right direction. We're down 30% year over year in terms of crime. We're down 40% in Union Square in our downtown area. Our local law enforcement is doing incredible work. We're using drones as a first responder. We're using license plate readers. When you commit a crime in San Francisco now, you're getting caught. And I think public safety has to be our number one priority.

It has been from day one, and I think the small business community, our restaurants, our bars, they're seeing that, and I think big business. You had John Gray of Blackstone running along the wharf, fishermen's wharf, two weeks ago saying, buy San Francisco real estate. I mean, if that isn't a good sign, retail space, we got Nintendo, we got Zara, we got UniqueLo that left four years ago, is reinvesting at Fourth and Mission. These major retailers, they're coming back to San Francisco because they know what we all know here in San Francisco and that we are indeed a city on the rise where the home of AI, it's all happening in San Francisco.

It's not happening in Silicon Valley. It's happening in San Francisco. But let me ask you, because a lot of blame for the affordability crisis is going to the tech industry, which you wanted to come back. Now, let me- But you're bringing that up, but that's what we said five, six years ago.

Yes, correct. Right. Okay. So that's like a narrative. And if we don't build more housing, it will get that way again. Absolutely. But a lot of these companies, of course, famously left and kicked San Francisco on the way out. And I actually ran into one of the people that did that in a beautiful bakery here. And I said, and I walked up to him, I said, get the fuck out of here. Like, we can't have our breath. Like, they're back. And AI, of course, has led that. And companies like OpenA. anthropic. How do you entice companies? And also we have other companies like Elf and many others who have stuck with San Francisco. So, yay, there's the Elf people. We don't want to give up too much to

these people. No, we want them to be invested in San Francisco. So I say public safety, we have to get our behavioral health crisis under control, which we're working on every single day. And then third, I want everybody to know that San Francisco is open for business. We're stripping away red tape. We're cutting bureaucracy. But then my demand is that you as a company, be engaged in our public schools, be engaged in our arts and culture institutions, which they were not, which they were not. There was a lot left lacking, as you and I talked about for years.

And I worked hard on it when I was running tipping point. And you'd see some good people, but I'm seeing more. We started something, Scott, we started something called the Partnership for San Francisco, modeled after what New York City did in the 1970s when New York was really hit hard. We now have 35 business leaders that are home-based here or live here in San Francisco re-committing or committing to our city

and helping not only revive us. They'll be part of San Francisco because mostly they seem like takers to me the last time. And I'm only interacting with those that will make sure that they commit once again to funding Muni. We have to make sure public transit is top-notch in San Francisco, that our arts and culture institutions are supported, that our public schools are supported.

We started something, Mani who's backstage, he and I started something called the Civic Joy Fund a few years ago where we're doing trash pickups across this city. This city, no one's coming to save San Francisco, except for San Franciscans. And I want those companies engaged. I want them involved,

and they will be. And we're demanding that of them, but we also need to entice people back because I want that revenue here. I want our public schools getting more of those tax dollars. And so I think it is a give and take, and they need to give more than they did in the 2010. Absolutely, Scott. Just on an interpersonal basis, I've always been struck by, and I'm going to be clear, this is pure pandering. But I've always been struck by all of these people who, for like, lack of a better term, shitpost San Francisco, these tech brothers. These people have more options

than anywhere in the world, anyone in the world, and yet they all decide to stay in this hellscape. When you interact with these folks, like, what's the vibe? It's, are they constantly saying, what is the ask to you as they threaten to leave every day and don't? What, when they meet with you and say it's awful here and I could go anywhere in the world but I'm going to stay what does the conversation how does the conversation go ahead Mark I'm saying we'll get to him mark is not just hold on that's not fair mark is far from the worst just just to be just to be clear yeah and for your listeners out there that don't know me I'm 10 months into this job I've never been in politics before I ran because I saw our city going in

the wrong direction and i couldn't sit on the sidelines and just uh you know complain i wanted to get into the action and so it's been a different conversation over the last year and a half we got caught flat-footed by the fentanyl crisis uh we uh did not protect families and and kids going and taking muni to school there's people smoking fentany and we were just like that's okay so i saw some of our challenges up close and personal walking my kids to school and and and And so the conversation I've had over the past year with these people is, I'm fixing it. I want you here, but you better help me fix it, too. And so I don't, I haven't heard.

What does that mean? How do they help you fix it? What's the ask? The ask is, when you come back to work, be in the office five days a week. Don't necessarily just have your kitchens and your cafeterias inside. Go shop at the local businesses. Like, get out. fund public transit

because your employees take transit here. Rather than special buses. Yeah, that's right. So my ask is that conversation that you're talking about, it was four or five years. And what we all know the answer to this is, when San Francisco is at its best, this is the greatest city in the world. It's the most

beautiful city in the world. It's got the most innovative ecosystem in the world. We got Stanford. We got cow, we got UCSF right here. We got OpenAI. We got Anthropic. We got a new company that called Cursor. I mean, we have, Karen, you guys know this. Like every city that you've stopped in, six straight, they would die to have one of those companies in their city. We have them all. And they better get involved in our community. And that's my ask of that. So just a couple more questions. Last month you talked President Trump out of sending a surge of federal troops here to Hellscape.

Trump says he backed off because you, quote, asked very nicely what is wrong with him. A lot of big tech guys reached out to him on your behalf, which I think is fine, but horrible, that this is the way it goes. It's like it's an oligarchy, if that's the case of the rich guys have to do this, Jensen Wong and Sam Altman, very different strategy than Gavin Newsom's. But talk about that. Like, what is, does it still hang over your head? Does it, like, could he still threaten you if he decide?

Well, let me just tell you what I said to him, that this is the greatest city in the world when we are at our best. Our local law enforcement is crushing it when it comes to driving crime down. We are the innovative ecosystem of the world. I think what happens in places like D.C. is they have this old narrative of San Francisco. Just like the conversation with some of these tech people that were leaving, but you walk through, I walk through the ferry building today, every place is leased out in that building. It's got amazing food.

You walk through North Beach, it's packed right now. I mean, every neighborhood in San Francisco, the sunset, is doing incredibly well. And so we just have to, my conversation with him was telling him what is actually happening here in San Francisco. Is it a, God, you have the sun. up to that guy. I mean, honestly, I couldn't be mayor. I'm so glad he didn't run. I just, I'd be like, Hugh. There was just, it was just facts, is what I said. And it was straight facts. Yeah. Do you expect, what will you do if they decide to, he decides he needs to get out of, say, the Epstein situation and decides to distract people?

I can, so this is a question. You and I have talked about this. I am the mayor of San Francisco. And it's, first off, I love my job. Second off, this city is so incredibly important and special that I just stay focused on what I can control. I cannot control what's going on in D.C. I can't control what's going on in Sacramento. People ask me questions about different things happening around this country. I'm like, I can control public safety in San Francisco.

I can work hard to tackle this fentanyl crisis. And we can make life easier for our small business owners. build more housing, we can fund public transit. I'm only 10 months into this job, the idea that I could control anything outside of San Francisco, and you know you can't necessarily control what's going on in your own city. So I just relentlessly stay focused on what I can control. Well, God save you for that one. So I have one last question in Stop Might, but San Francisco is a major hub for a hub for autonomous vehicles with companies like Waymo and Cruise operating driverless taxi services. I've been riding them for years.

Cruising. Not Cruz. Cruise is out. Sorry. That's right. They had some issues. Issues. But Waymo just announced

is going to start offering driverless rise to freeways here in San Francisco as well as Phoenix and Los Angeles. I've been driving in Waymos for years, actually. I'm a fan. I know not everybody is, but Uber is in a robo-taxy testing phase

here and plans to roll out of service late next year. Two-thirds of San Franciscoans now support autonomous vehicles, but critics say they're entrenching car-dependent infrastructure. Safety concerns, obviously recent Waymo struck and killed a beloved San Francisco cat named Kit Kat in the Mission District. So talk about this idea of balancing innovation with the city's first transit policy and climate goals because, I mean, I know Gavin Newsom had to deal with the Google founders trying to put a chairlift in San Francisco up the hills, if you recall. I remember that. Listen, I think we're going to always be on the leading edge here in San Francisco.

I always want us to be on it. I think we put guardrails in place. We make sure safety is forefront. This is state regulations, as you know. And I think Waymo is incredibly safe, and they're doing really great work. And I don't think that means that you can't go all in on transit. And you can't go all in on making sure that people that are walking and biking and driving all feel safe. Like, I don't think it's in either.

Or Waymo has been, it's incredibly popular for our tourists. And, as you said, like two-thirds or more of the city now understands it, it's safer than you or I getting behind a wheel. Yeah, I just had a biker get in front of the Waymo, and all the humans drove around it like a crazy person, but the Waymo was behind it for hours. And at first I was like, you asshole, and I'm like, San Francisco, it's fine. It's fine.

It's the last question for you. What isn't working? What do you think is presenting a bigger challenge than you hadn't, than you'd anticipate it. Scott, I think the pace of change just, just, I'm constantly frustrated. I'm constantly wanting us to go faster, but I will close with this because, you know, one thing that I'm really proud of that we did as a city is that with this government shut down, we were able to get and cover the 112,000 San Franciscans that were going to go missing from

their food stamps. and and we moved heaven and earth and from the time we said go and we put nine million in and crank start foundation put nine million dollars in and we had a press conference on the city hall steps and we said we got you San Francisco seven days from start to the time we put in the mail access to gift cards for people we got it done in seven days it was it reminded me that when government is at its best and when it wants to work it can but too often it takes so long and the people deserve faster you know faster government and that's what we're trying to do every day here in San Francisco. All right. All right. Mayor Lurie, thank you so much.

Well, let me get back to work. Good to see you, Kara. Always. Let's have another round of applause for Mayor Lurie. All right. Okay, we need to take a quick break. When we come back, we'll get to some of the latest headlines. Support for the show comes from Odu. Running a business is hard enough, and you don't need to make it harder

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Go to Upwork.com slash save now and claim the offer before December 31st, 2025. Again, that's upwork.com slash SAVE. scale smarter with top talent and $500 in credit. Terms and conditions apply. Scott, we're back. See how that worked? Incredible. That was an interlude there.

We're taping this on Thursday when stocks are having their worst day in a month, taking a massive dive in the wake of the record six-week government shut down. S&P fell around 1.6%, the Dow dropped 800 points, the NASDAQ, about 2.3% tech and AI stocks got hammered, something you and I have been talking about this past seven days in our togetherness week. Invidia, Broadcom, Alphabet all slid on valuation of meta. Disney crashed on disappointing earnings. Markets also soured on a chance of December Fed rate cut dropping. So talk about this AI. People have been sort of talking about it incessantly. Michael Burry, famous short seller, has been talking about it a lot.

So is it because the AI earnings don't support valuations, or is it a healthy reset? Yes. Okay. So, look, America could best be described right now as just a giant bet on AI. It's hard to imagine a period, maybe back with the railroads, where our economy has been this dependent on a small number of companies. You have 10 companies that now represent 40% of the S&P by market value, which represents 20% of global value.

If these companies sneeze, the whole world is probably catching pneumonia. And if you look at the multiples historically, the Schiller Index, which looks at the PE ratios on an inflation-adjusted basis, it is higher than it's been since they've been tracking it for 99% of the time. And it's in the top 1% right now, periods, in terms of an index.

The Buffett Index, which measures market cap as a percentage of GDP typically trades around 85%. It's trading at 220%. So, and I want to be clear when, quote unquote, people like myself are convinced something's about to crash, that means it's usually about to skyrocket, and then I throw the towel in, and then it crashes. So I'm having-

This is Tesla with Scott. I'm having PTSD because I was here from, I went to, I graduated from the hospital of business. I lived in San Francisco from 1992, started two companies' profit and red envelope. And I remember in 1997 thinking everyone, the economist, everyone, Wall Street Journal, all the smartest people, Julian Robertson,

all these incredibly smart investors said, the dot-com, they perfectly called how the dot-com bubble would unwind. First it would be B2C, then it would be B to B, and then it would go to the infrastructure guys, the plays. Everyone was like, well, it's not B2C, go to BVB, and then go to Cisco. And Cisco and Amazon lost 90% of their value from 1999 to 2001. But the people who called it in 1997, the NASDAQ doubled from that point. But what you have is so frightened, because quite frankly, the string

that might get pulled by some of the companies that are headquartered here, I mean, I'd like to give the mayor some talking points. In the last five years, as much as people ship post-California, There's been more wealth created in a seven-mile radius of SFO International Airport than in all of Europe in the last 20 years. I mean, it's striking how much value has been created here, but the string that might get pulled here is just so extraordinary. And I think it goes something like this. A large company announces that they're scaling back their investments in LLM side. A large non-tech company. PepsiCo or Toyota says, look, on their earnings call, we made this enormous investment and site licenses.

from, you know, Open AI or Anthropic, and it's just not showing any ROI, or it's not showing the ROI we anticipated, we're scaling back. And it's not Open AI that could take, in my opinion, the market down, it's Open AI, which is the front, the helm of the bobsled. And then the company that could take the global economy down right now

is one that is worth more than the entire German stock market, and that is Invidia. And that is, this company's worth $5 trillion. Take every company, publicly listed company, in Germany and half the company is publicly listed in France. That's what NVIDIA is worth. And so there is no soft landing. And if NVIDIA got cut by 60 to 80, got cut by 60 to 80 percent, it still might not look

cheap. And if you lose $2 trillion in market cap from the SMP, there's just nowhere to hide. Right, because the other companies are the ones that are suffering from this, this, was it magnificent 7 or 10, is that they didn't get affected by tariffs. they didn't get affected by all kinds of things. But the president, so this is the dark side of the run-up here, and that is I believe that AI has this, without these 10 companies, the market, the S&P would be flat, possibly down,

and we'd already be in a recession, and GDP would be negative. And quite frankly, and you never know where external dollars are going to come from, I don't think the president would have cloud cover to be sending mass secret service or secret police into cities if the market was down 2%. Because of the idolatry of the dollar and our, obsession with wealth and innovators in this country, as long as the markets are up. Most damaging metrics in history are the S&P and the NASA, because they give the illusion of prosperity. They are not the mainstream economy. And also, when the markets are up 16%, and as of this morning, 14%, it gives

cloud cover for the administration to kind of do whatever they want, because everyone's like, well, as long as the market's up, they must be doing something right, and I'll forgive them. So what you're going to see, I believe, is a series of nonsensical, crony autocratic financings where they back debt to buy more chips and create these circular deals. Was it the government?

Because we've been talking about the... Scott and I lived through the first internet part, which was this... There's a company called Purchase Pro, and it was like that was one of them, but there was all this round tripping where the same $5 would go from AOL would invest, and then they would spend on AOL and etc.

Invidia invest, I know, I forget. $300 billion, wasn't it? No, well, right now, 100 billion. Right now, Nvidia, so Nvidia invests billions of dollars in Open AI in exchange for them buying Nvidia chips. That's a related party transaction. There were a ton of them going on in the late 90s.

We were all buying each other's crappy software. And then when we realized that consumers weren't showing up at the level we'd anticipated for the great world of e-commerce, the whole thing, the downward spiral, I mean, these deals just feel very late stage, stage 90s. It is different this time because these are real companies with real earnings growth. But when you're when you're open AI committing to $1.2 trillion in spend on 12 billion in revenues, and by the way, I'd love to see the actual legal language behind these commitments

to buy 300 billion in compute from Oracle because there's no way they're not they're not going to have an out. I think a lot of this is marketing. I think saying I need 40 nuclear power plants, and I'm going to buy $300 billion in compute, is saying, Jesus, you should see the size of my dick. You haven't seen it, but just wait, I am so confident in my business that I'm going to commit to a $300 billion deal. I bet this deal similar to a tariff deal is a quote-unquote framework, and it's marketing saying, I know more than you, and these huge deals, they're trying to scare away competitors.

So one of the things, when you have these kind of deals, it does create this froth. And even, as you said, these are companies with actual customers. Certainly OpenAA has, many others. But it creates this, it so reminds you of the dot-com thing, except in the dot-com time period. To start a company was inexpensive, and there were lots of them, right? It was relatively inexpensive to start something up and gin it up comparatively. Right now, you need data centers, you need energy, you need water. The amount of money spent on real things that they're spending on or committing to,

They just announced something in Wisconsin, in Louisiana, META did, et cetera. Now, META has plenty of cash because they make a lot of money through advertising right now. At some point, it's going to be good for maybe one, possibly two players, and everyone else is, I assume, it's going to be shit out of luck. In this scenario, it's not going to be lots of companies. So I have a different view on this, and that is because the majority of the people running these companies are under the age of 45, They don't remember airlines, vaccines, or PCs. And that is, I think the greatest innovation in history

other than the American middle class is vaccines. It saves millions of people's lives every year. And by the way, if you don't believe that, your head is so far up your ass, I can't save you. But I would imagine almost everybody here believes that. But we have come to believe that any huge tectonic innovation from technology can be sequestered by a small number of companies who create IP modes, create distribution modes, brand modes,

such that they can accrete trillions of dollars in value or hundreds of billions to shareholders. There is no technology that changed my life more than the ability to get in a plane and skirt the surface out of the atmosphere at eight-tenths the speed of sound. That is just such an unbelievable unlock. It took my parents seven days crawling across the Atlantic

and six-month salary to get to America. People to get to San Francisco 150 years ago I used to have to stop and eat their nephews and nieces on the way. I mean, but guess what? As of today, as of today, if you added up all the profits and losses of the airline manufacturing industry in airlines, it's a break-even. Vaccines, no one's made a lot of money from vaccines. Modernist stock is down 90%.

I was on the board of Gateway Computer, which I realized is almost as weak of flex as you saying, I've been taking Waymos for effort. Smell you. We got last night, look, Waymo's as we were driving in. I'm like, check that shit out. Check it out. Oh my God.

So I could masturbate in the back and no one would care. Anyway, that was even awkward for me. Did you do that today? Is that what you did today when you're away from me? Don't rag on my hobbies. Okay. Anyway, so vaccines, PCs, we put a supercomputer on everyone's, on everyone's desk that cost $30 million as 15 years prior.

prior, the entire PC industry has been a shit show. What I was saying with Gayway Computer, we were the second large computer manufacturer in the world. We sold the company for $700 million, which is what Google loses or makes in about three minutes in a trading day. My thesis is the following, that the ability to reverse engineer other LLMs

because of AI and the second factor, the CCP is so sick of this idiot fucking with them that they have said the easiest way to go for the jugular in America is to do in the 80s what they did with steel, and they started dumping still in America, I believe China right now is planning to dump massive AI LLMs at a fraction of the cost, a fraction of the energy consumption,

it's gonna take these companies down and really fuck with our economy. That's what I would do if I were she. So one, I think we're gonna be the winners here, just as we were the winners from airlines, PCs and vaccines. And the internet. But I don't think a small number of companies

are gonna be able to sequester the kind of value we are anticipating. So in some, I think we're gonna win as a society, but the markets, I think, are about to get an absolute shit-kicking as the string gets pulled by on these small number of companies, which we have become way too dependent upon. Because if I'm in China, I'm like, I really would like to fuck with this guy. I'm going to dump so many cheap LLMs and AI into the ecosystem

that these guys won't be able to support, have any sort of pricing power. Yeah, very, I agree with you on this. It's a really problem that you start to see it, including just this today, They used AI to do a hack for the first time, a fully AI-powered hack, which was there's all kinds of things the CCP can do to hurt us. And meanwhile, they spent a lot of time kissing up to Trump in order to get things, you know, doing the G or me argument that we talked about. But let's move on to the latest Epstein news.

The lawyer that got Jelaine Maxwell transferred to a minimum security prison has egg on his face today and much more in a Twitter spat with George Conway, Deputy A.G. Todd Blanche seemed to admit that Wednesday's Epstein document dump undermined the interview he had with Maxwell pre-transfer. And interview is doing a lot of work in that sentence right there. The transfer looked even worse after Wednesday's document dump showed that Trump and Epstein were tighter than people thought. Scott, do you think she'll have to go back to the old prison? I'd say a hole down at the bottom of the ocean would work for me. Thoughts? He did. He admitted he didn't know.

the things, although the Justice Department has all these, has ten times more documents. So what I don't like about Democrats is that, and I consider myself a proud progressive, but I think oftentimes we get caught grasping for a virtue pen or pin as opposed to really focusing on what impacts the material and psychological well-being of more Americans. I hope Tulane Maxwell dies in prison, but I don't really care. I don't. I don't. I think the more important thing that impacts people is we have bastardized, perverted, and ruined a very important process of our justice system, which is clemency and pardons. And there are really talented people who are, there are people because of things like three strikes, because of incompetent representation, because of a mental illness. There are just, there are a lot of people who are imprisoned, and then there's great work done to uncover.

covered DNA testing that finds out that they are, in fact, innocent of the crimes, or that they're spending life in prison because they stole a car antenna out of a Kmart. And this whole process is an incredibly important process. And it has been totally perverted by this notion that essentially, in America, we've monetized health care. In Europe, health care is about trying to keep people healthy. Here it's about trying to figure out a way to make the pharmaceutical and the obesity industrial complex profitable. We have monetized health care in this country. It's the best place in the world, be sick if you're in the top 10%.

It's one of the worst places to be in the bottom 90. We pay double per capita for health care to be more anxious, depressed, obese, and die sooner. And now, who would have thunk it? We're monetizing the pardon and clemency process. Well, this is not surprised. This is a coin-operated president. Well, that's my point. You know, I agree.

I mean, it's one of the problems that we, have here, though, is that is the relentless lying. And obviously, you at the time, when Epstein first, when Elon first tweeted the Epstein thing, remember you were like, oh, I said, uh-oh, because I saw that. I get the sense I was wrong and you were right. I didn't know where this is going. That is correct. Whenever we revisit history, it ends with, and I was right. Well, I was. The new biography from Kara Swisher. And dot, dot, dot, dot, I was right. But the thing is, was right. So, but he did.

He sloughed it off and you said it's not. I said this Epstein thing is going to blow up like a Roman fucking candle. I said it wasn't? Yes, you did. But Elon, when he threatened to ruin Trump, he put a tweet out when he was on his way out of Doge, when Doge, you know, he saw the files is what I thought. And he made veiled threats. But then he took it down when he realized he went too far.

But when he put that up, I went, oh, Elon. I know what you're up to because he knew. And so it's become this phenomena, I think is a problem for Trump. It looks like much of the House and the Senate are going to let this thing go through, this release the Epstein files. It looks like it right now. So let me finish. The release of the documents right now, though, is such an online phenomenon.

It's crazy. It already was with the QAnon gang, but now everyone's participating in it at this point. So talk about what's happening here, Because just what's been released now is crazy and problematic for the president, obviously. And I think he hasn't had an eruption all day. Jay Vance is gone. I don't know where he went. He usually gets on and gets all mad about things and, you know, sits on a couch, et cetera.

And he has not been a van—I have to. I don't think he fucked a couch, everyone. I think I don't. I don't think he fucked a couch, but the fact of the matter is, I think he could. See, that's where I feel about him, right? Like, yeah, sure, he'd fuck a couch, right? But I don't think he necessarily did. I don't care.

Well, I'm glad we cleared that up. You know what? It's San Francisco. This is great alternative media. Okay, all right. What do you imagine the repercussions? Because if there is, if this starts to really slide, and it has that feeling of slide, especially because it's, Now, we don't have to believe everything Jeffrey Epstein, that heinous monster said,

but it has the feel of something sort of late-stage Trump, for some reason, to me. And I think a lot, like you saw Louisiana Senator, John Kennedy, who pretends he's like foghorn, leghorn. But he said, he's like, well, I think I should, you know, I'm going to vote for this thing, and I don't care if I get a sombrero, like I was like, which is, I thought at first, oh, he's so racist. But then I realized Trump put a sombrero on Hakeem Jeffrey's head. So anyway, my point being, what do you think the couch fucking Epstein files, what do you think is happening here? Do you think it's a big thing? We're going to reheat your soup for you.

You're fine. What do you think is going to, I feel like a Q-Non person, but do you, what do you think is going to happen here? And the, strategoried out for us. So the reality is, and you've pointed this out, I think I'm better than your average bear at predicting business outcomes. I'm worse than your average person. I would have thought that we crossed about eight. I would have thought launching a meme coin the Friday before your inauguration where people could billions of dollars into essentially a Swiss banking account that you then monetize. There's been so many red.

The orgy of corruption here has been so extraordinary. I was taking a plane from a golf station. I just, I always thought, oh, this is it, this is the red line. And so I don't know if this is the red line. The thing I can't figure out though, or so supposedly every morning on his calendar, he has quote unquote executive time, where he just watches Fox News and hangs out, right? And what I imagine is he meets with his decorator for the East Wing, and then he meets with his comms consultant talking about the Epstein files.

And I think it goes something like this. Decorator comes in, mood board, and you're like, I want it to look like the best whore house Iraq. I think that's, and two, he says to his comsperson around Epstein, I just want to look so fucking guilty. Just, I want to look like, I want everything I do, my body language, everything I say, I just want to convince people I'm guilty. Because there's been a lot of people who've gone to the island and they've come out and they've said, huge error in judgment. I shouldn't have been down there. I shouldn't have cohorted with this guy. It was really stupid. And people have forgiven Trump for so much more than that, for him to be this panicked, it just looks and smells and feels

like there's something really ugly here. And typically with a crime, it's not the crime itself that you get in trouble for. It's the cover up, right? Martha Stewart wouldn't have gone to prison if she said, yeah, I traded on insider information. I didn't know what I was doing. I'm really sorry. It was her lying and trying to cover up. Americans actually, although I don't think they'd forgive him for this,

but in general, Americans like to forgive. What they hate is people who won't come clean. So I don't, and his body language is so extraordinary. I wonder if this is the event, the kind of singularity or the apex kind of predator, and that is people start fleeing from him. Well, you're saying it in the polling numbers, including, especially with Republicans, actually. The Republican numbers are down.

And then all of a sudden, all of a sudden, all his, defenders are now trashing him, which is interesting to watch. But who is that? All of those. I don't cat turd, et cetera, those people. They are. They're starting to really, the thing they're most mad about is him insulting American workers over Chinese workers.

It's just so, I mean. They're not mad about pedophiles. They're mad about American workers. Whatever. They're mad people. I'll put it back to you because I've been just so wrong on this for so long. What I thought? I think, I do think this is it.

Because I do believe... But when you say it, what happens? Well, I think more will be... I think he can... It may not get... I think if it passed... It's going to pass the House. I have a feeling it might pass the Senate

because you don't want to be on record as trying to quash this kind of stuff. He'll get to his desk. He's going to have to veto it, right? He's going to veto it. If he vetoes it, it might not get out, but it will then get out.

Yeah, but it... Okay, first off, I think... More stuff. To me, what has to happen? Right. These emails, and by the way I spent all day reading them, these emails are problematic enough. There's a photo, and Epstein is referred to it, there's a video, there is definitely a photo of him in some fashion, and that will get out, and then it'll, because as you said, visual stuff is what people respond to.

People are very upset about the East Wing because visually it's repulsive to look at. And so if there's a photo, I think, you know, the, the pussy grabbing thing was voice, which was problematic enough. But there's a photo like what happened to Andrew. I think it's game over. And then we have President Buck and Jay vans. But it forced to speculate, the thing that I think I would guess happens, when you have a sycophant, unusual gentleman running your FBI that is claiming the files have any, that the files have been released to. the extent that is legally possible, which is a lie, and you have your own personal attorney running the DOJ, I just wouldn't put them past them to do what I would call a soft release. And that is

they release stuff and claim it's a full release, and it just says the names of all these Democrats. But quite frankly, I just, why would we think it's not above them to engage in the corruption of bastardizing, lying, and altering the it here when they have implanted or embedded up. up and down the supply chain, a group of corrupt people. You know, I'm a big believer, as people know, when I covered Silicon Valley in the leak. And I think there's going to be people leaking this stuff over, and it's going to be drip, drip, drip, drip.

And this is something, I think, you know, it would be super ironic that this guy gets taken down by emails. You love that. Hillary Clinton must be like, you know, they were on her. It was a big joke on the Internet. The thing that was on her server was she was trying to help a young girl get out of Afghanistan was what got leaked for her and for him.

It's, you know, all this terrible stuff. Yeah, I would put, I would say this is worse. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, we'll see what happens. I think this, I just, I don't know. I feel like we're going to have President J. Vance by the end of 2026. I get it, but he is the vice president.

You think this ends his presidency prematurely. Yes. He'll be sick. He'll be that. Bada, blah, blah, yeah, I do. I think he's not going to make it to the end.

Be careful what you wish for. I think J.D. Vance is scary. Hello. I just called him a couch fucker to San Francisco. Or alleged couch fuck. Is all of the calories with none of the great taste of stupidity that doesn't get things done. This guy is,

do you want Peter Thiel to be president? because that's who's going to be president. Yep. And by the way, who is also in the Epstein emails, FYI. A lot of people are in there. He was just, they're just joshing away. I love the stuff about Larry Summers getting dating advice. Larry Summers, to me, the worst thing today was Megan Kelly sort of parsing.

Age? It's not as bad as we thought because it's 15-year-olds, not 5-year-olds? Yeah, 10-year-olds. 10-year-olds? Yeah, 5-year-olds are worse for her, I guess. The whole thing was demented. Like, it was demented. I listened to the whole thing because I was trying, I'm like,

oh, she can't have said that. And I'm like, she said that and more. Like, it was really, to me. And in a different age, that would have been career ending. And it's not. She'll just rage your way through it with her brand base. Yeah, I don't, well, I don't, I don't, I like the fact. I think we need less career ending stuff when people fuck up.

Because if we're going to have 24 by 7 media, I think you have a little. Why does anyone want to run for anything? Have you noticed in this guy, the mayor, he's unique because he doesn't want to, I generally believe he doesn't want to do anything after this because he wouldn't come on my podcast. I can get anyone on my podcast right now because they're all running for president. And he said no, which means he has no desire to move on beyond being mayor. Maybe he doesn't like you because he's coming on mine. Actually, he already went on yours and you know our deal in this relationship. When you bring in a third person, I at least get to watch.

Anyways, where were we? So profoundly uninterested am I in you? What I was saying, essentially, unfortunately, the reason politicians are so boring and so starched is they're worried about saying something indeligent. I'm not talking about Megan Kelly. And I think that Democrats, quite frankly, need to be more forgiving and have fewer purity tests and be more focused on the programs. Yeah, I agree. You know I agree with it, but I don't agree. I don't agree when you say, hey, it's a 15-year-old.

We can all understand that. Yeah, but you hate Megan Kelly and she hates you. No, no, no. That is not why. You don't hate her? No, of course not. I advise her to go into podcasting, a thing I regret to this very day. She's very good.

I get it, but this, you have to, I'm sorry. There's certain things you're right. You shouldn't be careful about saying. It's a giant fucking distraction. No, it's not. It's a heinous thing to say. Okay, but why are we spending. I just think it was particularly heinous on a heinous day of things.

Yeah, she's a fucking podcaster. What we say is not that relevant. The emails and what's going on with him are the news. Yes, absolutely. I agree. I still think she's heinous. Anyway, all right. We need to take another quick break and we come back.

We'll get to a little more news and then listen to her questions. So get ready. Support for the show comes from Odu. Running a business is hard enough, and you don't need to make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other. one for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. Before you know it, you find yourself drowning in software and processes instead of focusing on what matters,

growing your business. This is where Odu comes in. It's the only business software you'll ever need. Odo is an all-in-one fully integrated platform that handles everything. That means CRM accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR, and more. No more app overload, no more juggling logins, just one seamless system that makes work easier. And the best part is that Odo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. It's built to grow with your business, whether you're just starting out or you're already scaling up. Plus, it's easy to use, customizable, and designed to streamline every process. It's time to put the clutter aside and focus on what really matters, running your business. Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you? Try

odoo for free at odoo.com. That's odio.com. Scott, we're back. Secretary of State Marco Rubu has directed visa officers to deny entry to people with chronic health conditions like obesity, diabetes, and cancer, citing potential health care costs. They try it right in. Yeah, I know, exactly. The guidance also flags retirement age and having dependence with disabilities as a reason for denial. The White House claims it's just enforcing an old policy not letting in people who'd be a drain on taxpayers, but immigration lawyers. say it's a massive expansion who can be turned away.

About 16% of adults worldwide are obese, probably largely here. What does this sound? It's not giving me your tired, your poor kind of attitude. What historical government does this remind you of, Scott? Look, I don't think anyone has, this is a tough one, because, I mean, it's sort of the one thing we share in America, except in wealthy cities where you all go to Equinox. By the way, I went to the Equinox in my hotel today, the hottest men. Okay.

My God. Did you hook up? Whew. Wow. Yeah, in a back of a weimo. Yeah. Now, so 70% of America is either overweight or obese. That's the one thing we share.

70% of Americans aren't anything except we're obese and overweight. So that seems very strange to me that we wouldn't say, oh, you're uniquely American if you're obese. But at the same time, I do think that, and it can go up and down, if you're an outstanding roofer and you don't have a criminal record, we need roofers. We need people to take care of our elderly. We need people to keep our prices. I'm a big fan of going up and down the supply chain in terms of who we let in. But I do think there should be criteria around who will or who won't be a drain on the system. I just don't know if you're taking snap.

This is all about cruelty, just cruelty to various people. It's not, and again, the real obesity problem is here in this country. They don't want to address that. But on a meta-level, this is what happened. When progressives wouldn't enforce the border, fascist's will. We stuck our chin out. We let a quarter of a million people come across the border in one month under Biden by going asylum. That's all they had to do.

And so the general cadence and rhythm of politics in America the last 10 years is the following. We are well-intentioned progressives. We do really fucking stupid things. We let a transgender woman show up at an NC2A meet and compete, right? And I'm not suggesting that a transgender athlete in junior high school, leave it up to the school, if it gives her confidence, fantastic. But when we let transgender athletes compete for medals and money, and we all just ignore it, fine. When we let a quarter of a million people come in and then what happens, we have this severe reaction of fascism from the right where they start pulling the names off of people who have served honorably, and we decide in a little nod to the gay community's contribution to the military that we're going to name a secondary frigate after Harvey Milk, and they decide to take the fucking name off. I mean, that's just, that is just so weird. They're now kicking all transgender service people out of the service who have served.

honorably, which is not only mean and cruel, but it makes us less safe. But let's be clear, folks, we stick our chin out, in my view. And I know that's not popular among this audience, but when we go fucking insane and do things that are well-intentioned, but we built an infrastructure and an apparatus where people like me can pay themselves well and have no accountability or measurable outcomes, then sweep in this ridiculous, fascist argument that we should cut funding to universities under the auspices of anti-Semitism. We take good, intentions way too far, focused on virtue, not on actual on the ground material or economic or psychological well-being, and they overcorrect with what feels like fucking 1933 Germany.

But see, Scott, that's the thing. You're saying, I might agree with you on some of that, but it's the level of cruelty and how far they go. Agreed. You know, the left can be sincerious, and then the right bans books. Like, it's a very different level of... We're saying the same thing. But when you have something like this, what should be the criteria if it comes in?

People who are useful that we need here in this country? And to kick people out, not people who are hardworking, paying their taxes, etc. You know how I feel about this stuff. I don't, I think it's, I think it's, we need people to, look, the reality is this. People say immigration is the secret sauce of America. Okay, I don't know what that means. the most profitable part of immigration is illegal immigration because these people pay so they call them undocumented workers they have all sorts of documents they have taxpayers because we want to collect social security payments for them they have phone contracts they have driver's licenses they have insurance contracts they have cable bills we paper them up all over the place so we can collect money right so the notion and we've been turning a blind eye to this for 40 years because the reality is they come in they don't tax our services they commit less crimes they they go to the emergency room less and they

pay social security taxes and generally they return home before they collect social security they're the most profitable flexible workforce in history having said that having said that you do need borders you do need some sort of system for evaluating and i personally believe that being born on planet earth does not give you a birthright to live in america otherwise we're going to have a billion people on our shores so there needs to be criteria some of it needs to to be based on true political asylum and where we can help people. But I do believe at the end of the day,

we should let in people that are most accretive to our economy and our society. I think there should be a criteria, and I think we should say no to a lot of people. Yeah, well, I still think this is cruel. I'm just thinking it's just, they're just doing it for performative ways. Okay, last question, then we're gonna get to audience questions.

Now, do you see why I'm so positive about San Francisco? Why I love it? He always gives me a hard time, but I love it. I lived here for 10 years. I was married. We were doing things like going sailing and going biking in Mount Tam. And I thought another 10 years of this,

and I was in tech. I'm going to go into the garage, turn the car on and leave the door down. There's nowhere to get a cocktail after 10 p.m. here. Everyone wants to go to Sonoma and go wine, tail, fuck. Oh, my God. Oh, in the technology industry. We're saving the planet.

I have never better more rapacious bunch of douchebags who would fuck their sister for a nickel. But we're saving the whales. We're saving humanity. So fucking unattractive. Okay. Oh my God, come to New York. Hello, hell.

They drink, they love to make money. Anyways, so true story, I said to my wife, I said, we decided to get divorced and I said, I want the dog, you can have all of our friends. friends, I'm never coming back. Well, I love San Francisco. I literally had the best day. I walked around Novi Valley, and I walked, it was pouring rain, but it was lovely.

I love it, San Francisco in the rain. I had oysters, and by the way, my son Louis is moving back here, so I'm very excited. He was born and raised here. So, thanks, Scott, for that terrific ad for San Francisco. We'll take one more quick break. We'll be back for some audience questions. We're very excited. Support for the show comes from Odu.

Running a business is hard enough, and you don't need to make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other. One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. Before you know it, you find yourself drowning in software and processes instead of focusing on what matters, growing your business.

This is where Odoo comes in. It's the only business software you'll ever need. Odo is an all-in-one fully innovative platform that handles everything. That means CRM accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR, and more. No more app overload. No more juggling logins, just one seamless system that makes work easier. And the best part is that Odo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. It's built to grow with your business, whether you're just starting out or you're already scaling up.

Plus, it's easy to use. customizable and designed to streamline every process. It's time to put the clutter aside and focus on what really matters, running your business. Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you? Try O-D-for-free at O-D-O-D-O-O-O-com. in the city by the bay and my favorite place on earth we're ready to take some questions to the audience and we love hearing from you we might not get to everyone tonight we're going to try we've been trying in every city we're getting biggie long lines that said keep questions short so we can get to as many people as possible but let's just look I have a special person starting let's show this clipping photo here so you might want to look at it okay this is a picture of Scott Galloway is as a kid doing taekwondo. Where did you get this?

Exactly. Seriously, I didn't hearse. So let's bring the lights up, please, so I can see where people are. This is in... So, hi. Hi. What's your name?

Debbie Brewbaker. Jesus Christ, really? Hi, Scott. This is apparently, or Scott thinks so, his fourth grade girlfriend? I'm thinking so. that's her up there. He's right there. He's right there. Just real quick, Debbie and I were the smartest kids in the third grade,

and they used to send us to fifth grade from Latin English, and we used to hang out. We did, and I am thinking maybe you had a crush on me, and maybe I had a crush on you, but I am now on Kara's team. back from the other side. But I haven't seen you in 50 years. She didn't know who I was when they asked you. She didn't know who I was when they asked her. Yeah, she's not online.

Is that right, Debbie, get on the thing. back up here, Scott Gallowy. Stop making out with your third-grade girlfriend, who is, of course, Scott's always like, everyone I went out with became a lesbian. I'm like, let me find one, let me find one for you. It was so easy. I should have known. We spent the night in your dad's camper, and you wouldn't even kiss me. We're playing truth or dare, and you're like, nope, Debbie, it's so good to see you. So do you have a really quick question for us, Debbie, by the way? You're not on social media. You have any questions for us? I am not on social media at all. Good for you.

I'll just tell a quick story, but my step-sister, who's here, is a huge fan of both of you. She listens to Pivot every podcast. And she, I guess, heard you say something about me and being the smartest girl in third grade. And she texted me, I guess she almost got in an accident. She was driving. And she texted me immediately and said, do you know Scott Galloway from fourth grade? And I said, yes, I do. And that led to other things that got me here.

and I've never seen you bald or call. It's not a good look. Is there, is it, is it, are you going to change back for him? Don't. Maybe I'd like to get to know you. Anyway, Debbie, thank you so much. They really appreciate it. It's so good to see you.

It's so nice. Thank you. What a thrill. Yeah, come to our party. Thank you. All right. Next up, my butler, Casey Newton. Hi, everybody.

Hi, Casey. Great to see you guys. I like to, my sons call him Gacy, but go ahead. That's right, yeah. I'm a huge fan of the pot. I actually had a crush on you, Kara, when I was in fourth grade. So it's nice to see you tonight. You know, I thought in the San Francisco fashion,

I might ask another AI question. Okay. I noticed in your analysis of the potential crash, you did not seem to take into account the possibility that one or more of these companies creates a pretty effective digital worker, something that you could swap in for many, many thousands of employees. And so I wondered, is that because you don't think it will happen?

And if you did think it might happen, how might it change your analysis? I'm sorry, an effective digital workplace? What we might call AI around here, a worker. Like something that you could use software instead of hiring a person, automation. So I think these companies are incredible companies, and I do think AI is going to... So every year I pick a technology of the year. I do a predictions deck at the end of the year, and I picked AI two years in a row.

And actually this year, I picked, I actually think GLP1 is bigger than GPT5 in terms of on the ground impact on Americans' lives. I think these things are going to be incredible. I just doubt they're going to be able to live up to the expectations built into, if you look Casey at, the market cap they're at, built into any sort of reasonable forward price earnings,

They're built into the valuations of these companies is the assumption that they're going to either create $3 to $5 trillion in incremental revenue for their clients or save $3 to $5 trillion. And so far, I don't see a lot of AI moisturizer or cars that are designed or driven by AI. Autonomous, you could argue. What I see so far is efficiencies, which is Latin for layoffs.

And if you do, so what you see is you hear about firms saying we're going to save 10 or 20 or 30. 30 or 50 million dollars on legal costs or compliance, which again is Latin for layoffs. And if you do the math, only 160 million Americans work. Assuming you need to get, you need to find a trillion dollars a year in efficiencies to justify these valuations, an average salary of 70 or 80 grand, including load, office load, 100 grand, let's just assume. To save a trillion dollars in efficiencies to justify the valuations, that means you need

to find 10 million fewer jobs, or there needs to be a labor destruction of 10 million jobs. If I'm 160 million total employment, stick with me, I know this is boring. If half the industries are immune to AI, plumbers, chiropractors, nurses, whatever, that means 80 million people are quote unquote vulnerable. And the only way you could justify these valuations

is one of three things needs to happen. They come up, all of a sudden, we start using all these AI-driven products that convince us to spend more money, Or we have a 12.5% destruction in the labor force across the industry susceptible to AI, which is chaos. That may not sound like a lot, but at the height of the automobile collapse, it wasn't that much labor.

So we're either going to have an unemployment chaos across several industries, or these companies are going to get cut in half. Either way, I see tumult. But Casey has this amazing subset called Platformer. That's right. And I'll put it back to you. Where do I have this wrong?

What do you think about that assertion? You may very well not have it wrong. I just know that all of the folks I talk to here who work in the industry who run these companies, say 12.5%. Like, yes, I can take that number of jobs out of the economy. So, you know, I don't know if they're right, but that is certainly the assumption that is holding here right now. Or perhaps they don't know. Well, yes. That's my assumption.

That's always my assumption. Right. And, you know, I see some of the clues to that is when OpenA announced an erotic. a service. That mean they'd run out of ideas, right? And they went right to porn. I was like, ah, we're porn now. That's a problem. All right. Well, thanks very much, John. Thank you, Casey. Thank you for the question. You guys, we really do recommend a platformer. Casey has been a long time in front of me. He did live in my house where Louis is going to be living in case in case you're interested. But he's a great, great writer and a great analysis.

So you should read him. Next question? I'm Joyce, 25-year resident of San Francisco. Cisco. Worked in music first and then tech. Um, music got destroyed by streaming. Tech kind of has had its bubble too. And now I work in legal weed. Oh, great. I manage one of the, yeah. Hello. Yes. Consumer here. Yes. Did you bring some for the dog? I brought you. Oh my God. I did. This you my shot, right? Yeah. This called Sonoma Hills Farm. We're the first OCal Certified Organic Cannabis Farm in the state. Yesterday was a big day in Congress. Well, hemp was banned yesterday.

I think it was 76 to 24. That makes sense, right? Right. You know, regulated parties are like, well, you know, hemp just kind of has this loophole and we've spent all this money. But at the end of the day, it was like the biggest step towards backtracking prohibition that we've seen in a long time. We have 24 legal states, 39 with, you know, medical cannabis helps with reducing anxiety.

That was Mitch McConnell in the alcohol lobby that did that. Correct. Yeah. You know, they have these amazing off-brand pharmacies here where you can get generic drugs, and I got some generic erectile dysfunction drugs. The generic term is my coxiflopin. Okay. What is your question?

No, that's bad. That's good. Doesn't that word just make you? just make you happy? My cocks a flopper? No, it doesn't. It makes me sad. Besides giving Scott drugs, what is your question? My question is, you know, 70% of Americans approve of legalization. And yet 24 people said yes yesterday and 76 said no. And here we are with 70% of the population able to buy legal canvas. Meta will not let us advertise. None of the fintech companies let us use their software. So these business owners who probably ideated, hi, now have these big companies

and they're saying, no, cannabis, you can't play in this field. I'm interested in like why big business and government keep saying no to something that a massive swath of the population cares. I mean, it's a really, I agree with you. It's ridiculous, which is why so much the action's been on a state level, right? Right. I find it, it's the same thing with gun control, but it's like 80%. There's a bunch of topics that are 80, 20, and our Congress does the very opposite for all various and sundry reasons, depending on the topic. But something like this, this is a, you know, it's a difficult industry. I know it's been through its ups and downs, the, especially the legal marijuana industry. It's been a tough, it's been a tough road in some many ways. I don't, I think it's the

alcohol lobby just had more power than the marijuana lobby, and somehow you have to gain more power And I suspect when Congress is in 103 fucking years old and, you know, puts back the liquor and Mitch McConnell's long gone, which is next week, hopefully. But some of these people, it will change as younger people come up and don't. Because I certainly know among, I have four kids,

but my older kids, well, Alex just does protein shakes. But, you know, they were not drinkers. They're weed people. people, right? Or that's the preference. And so it seems like all their friends are like that. So I think it's just a, it's a demographic trend that's just going to take a while. Scott, do you have any thoughts? So this goes back to dating advice. I think substances play a really important role in a young person's life, and they're not for everybody. You may decide that it's not for you. I'm trying to drink less alcohol as I get older because I realize my 51-year-old

liver cannot handle 51. He's not 51. Just go with it. No, I'm not. Just go with this. He's like Jaja Gabor of, like, podcasters. Anyways. Darling, I am very young. I love being high. I'm a better version of myself, a little bit fucked up.

And as I get older, I'm trying to reduce my alcohol content. And I replace it with THC and Edibles. But I'm very serious, and I've said this, and I've had Andrew Huberman and Peter Attea on my podcast. I think one of the worst things, the second worst thing, happen to young people. The worst is remote work. One third of relationships begin at work. You need to touch people. You need to, with their consent, you need to, you need guardrails. If I hadn't had a job at Morgan Stanley that demanded I got into the office, I didn't have the discipline not to walk my dog and watch Netflix and smoke a lot of pot every day. I needed

the office. I made friends. I found mentors. So anyways, but the second worst thing is this anti-alcohol movement. Look at the most important things in your life, the relationships. Look at your best friends. Look at your romantic relationships. Did alcohol play some role in that? Seriously. What about weed? She's asking about weed. For some of us, it was weed. Weed, I would say the same thing. But my advice, generally speaking, to young people, is drink and do some edibles and then go out and make a series of bad decisions that might pay off. Nice.

And for the marijuana, you'll get, you'll beat them at some point. You absolutely will. Because the old people will die. Yeah. But as Scott says, biology is undefeated. Anyway, we really appreciate this. And I'm so glad to see so many friends. I have so many friends.

And my amazing brother is here, Jeff Swisher. Dr. Swish. His lovely wife, Dana. I don't know where they are. My good friend, Robert May is here. We have lots. Robert, I don't know where you are. Tons.

We have tons of friends. space. Yeah, in any case, we really appreciate it. We love San Francisco. We will be back. You can catch selected shows from this tour on YouTube and your podcast feeds. So that's all we've got time for today. Scott, read us out. Today's show was

produced by Laranayman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kate Gallagher. Amazing support provided by Trish, Kelly Schwanter, and Caitlin Litch. And a beg shout-out to the Vox Media Experienial team, Riley Courtney given, Abby Aronofsky, and Caitlin Burla. Make sure to follow.

Fivit on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Vivid from New York Magazine, Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at Nguyen.com's last pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

Thank you, Keros Swisher, and thank you, San Francisco. Thank you, San Francisco. We love you. Thank you so much. the show comes from Odu. Running a business is hard enough, and you don't need to make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other. One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. Before you know it, you find yourself drowning in software and software and growing your business. This is where Odu comes in. It's the only business software you'll ever need. Odo is an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that handles everything. That means CRM accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR, and more. No more app overload. No more juggling logins. Just one seamless system. that makes work easier. And the best part is that O-DU replaces multiple expensive platforms

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